The Atari VCS Controversies Thread

[Agillig]

8 hours ago, jamm said:

I appreciate the many months of prep work being put into this initial shipment. A lot of companies just receive stuff to ship and ship it out practically right away, not dedicating the considerable time and resources such shipments deserve.  But that's not Atari.  It just means things will go absolutely smoothly once things actually start going out the door. 

The pessimist would say they're just stalling.   Anyway, I hope it does ship soon for the sake of the backers.  I'm curious how many will think it was worth the wait, especially compared to what else is out there.  Sometimes we wait 3 years for the Holy Grail only to find out it was just a sippee cup.  Only time will tell, but I wonder how many people would have given this system the time of day if it didn't have the Atari name attached. 

[+joeatari1]

20 hours ago, JeffVav said:

I started and ran the emulation team of Digital Eclipse based in Vancouver, so basically developed or led development on every Williams/Midway emulation compilation (Atari too) from 1995 Williams Arcade Classics up until the company's demise. That core team is now Code Mystics. 

(Just to confuse things further, the current Digital Eclipse was revived by Other Ocean after it bought the name from Foundation 9. Other Ocean is run by one of the four original Digital Eclipse founders but that location was actually the GBA team. The Wikipedia article on the company history is really messed up, but I can't fix it because there are apparently rules against that.)

I noticed you are named as the founder of Code Mystics by Wikipedia.  Are you still with that team or have you moved on since?  Also, I seem to recall in one of the VCS updated that Code Mystics was working on something for the VCS.  Is this the case and can you give any insight into it if there are no any NDAs preventing you from doing so?

[6502wrangler]

2 hours ago, Agillig said:

The pessimist would say they're just stalling.   Anyway, I hope it does ship soon for the sake of the backers.  

 

You don't even have to be a pessimist to come to this conclusion. They are holding up all shipments to wait for all the Joysticks to come in, but not everyone who preordered chose to order a Joystick, so they could have shipped those by now.

 

My guess is they are having problems with the software and online store, and are stalling to try to apply some bandaids. It's possible they have refused to pay (or can't pay) whoever is actually implementing it and they don't have the keys to the kingdom quite yet... but this is just speculation.

[Mikebloke]

3 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

 

FIFY 😜

Its the sleepless anticipation to get a hold of an atari 7800 concerto cart from batari that is causing these poignant mistakes!

[Agillig]

54 minutes ago, 6502wrangler said:

 

You don't even have to be a pessimist to come to this conclusion. They are holding up all shipments to wait for all the Joysticks to come in, but not everyone who preordered chose to order a Joystick, so they could have shipped those by now.

 

My guess is they are having problems with the software and online store, and are stalling to try to apply some bandaids. It's possible they have refused to pay (or can't pay) whoever is actually implementing it and they don't have the keys to the kingdom quite yet... but this is just speculation.

Well, I was trying to be nice.  The online store is quite the paradox.  If the VCS is just a PC like its supporters claim, why would anyone waste time making a VCS specific version of a game when a potential buyer could just get it from the Steam store?

 

I'm really trying to be nice, since I know people are getting excited about this thing, and there's really not much to be excited about lately.   But good grief, it's like Atari didn't think through a lot of their design decisions, and the final product is just a Frankenstein monster with bits and pieces of ideas that don't really fit together. All IMO, of course. 

[Oscar Manuel Rojas Maillo]

51 minutes ago, Agillig said:

Well, I was trying to be nice.  The online store is quite the paradox.  If the VCS is just a PC like its supporters claim, why would anyone waste time making a VCS specific version of a game when a potential buyer could just get it from the Steam store?

 

I'm really trying to be nice, since I know people are getting excited about this thing, and there's really not much to be excited about lately.   But good grief, it's like Atari didn't think through a lot of their design decisions, and the final product is just a Frankenstein monster with bits and pieces of ideas that don't really fit together. All IMO, of course. 

Very good point. That's why so many insisted in asking about exclusives. With such a low user base, my guess is that most devs refused investing time to develop exclusive games for this platform because it wouldn't be profitable, and Atari itself doesn't have the infrastructure or means to develop new games in-house. Yet, as you say, for Atari is not profitable to have users set this just a PC with the sandbox mode, where they won't be selling their store catalog.

[Chopsus]

3 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

Its the sleepless anticipation to get a hold of an atari 7800 concerto cart from batari that is causing these poignant mistakes!

No FArtari are simply incompetent.

[Chopsus]

3 hours ago, Agillig said:

   But good grief, it's like Atari didn't think through a lot of their design decisions, and the final product is just a Frankenstein monster with bits and pieces of ideas that don't really fit together. All IMO, of course. 

Someone posited this a while back: FArtari never intended to make the thing in the first place, they thought someone else would buy that “privilege” off them ... time moved on and they were forced to do something.

[CPUWIZ]

They should have just sold the shell and some decent joysticks, I bet that would gave been profitable.

[Bill Loguidice]

15 hours ago, jamm said:

I appreciate the many months of prep work being put into this initial shipment. A lot of companies just receive stuff to ship and ship it out practically right away, not dedicating the considerable time and resources such shipments deserve.  But that's not Atari.  It just means things will go absolutely smoothly once things actually start going out the door. 

I nominate this for the award for most delightfully passive aggressive post of all time on AtariAge.

[MrBeefy]

5 hours ago, Agillig said:

Well, I was trying to be nice.  The online store is quite the But good grief, it's like Atari didn't think through a lot of their design decisions, and the final product is just a Frankenstein monster with bits and pieces of ideas that don't really fit together. All IMO, of course. 

But it has an LED that lights up! That's all they need right? And lights that follow the input on the classic joystick. Fancy design stuff there.

[Oscar Manuel Rojas Maillo]

So. From day one backers were supposed to assume that we were going to receive a "beta" product? Someone posted on FB that that was ALWAYS(all caps verbatim), the intention

[Matt_B]

7 hours ago, Agillig said:

Well, I was trying to be nice.  The online store is quite the paradox.  If the VCS is just a PC like its supporters claim, why would anyone waste time making a VCS specific version of a game when a potential buyer could just get it from the Steam store?

 

I'm really trying to be nice, since I know people are getting excited about this thing, and there's really not much to be excited about lately.   But good grief, it's like Atari didn't think through a lot of their design decisions, and the final product is just a Frankenstein monster with bits and pieces of ideas that don't really fit together. All IMO, of course. 

It's basically a bait and switch exercise.

 

Whenever anyone calls it a console and how awful it is in comparison to other consoles, it's not a console.

 

However, there's zero revenue to be extracted after you've sold a PC, so it's got to have its own locked-down OS with an online store and a bunch of subscription-based services. It's not really a PC either, at least it isn't until you add an external drive and install your own OS.

They've then got the chutzpah to call it the "best of consoles and PC" when it's really more like the worst.

[JeffVav]

9 hours ago, joeatari1 said:

I noticed you are named as the founder of Code Mystics by Wikipedia.  Are you still with that team or have you moved on since?  Also, I seem to recall in one of the VCS updated that Code Mystics was working on something for the VCS.  Is this the case and can you give any insight into it if there are no any NDAs preventing you from doing so?

I still run Code Mystics. It was the Digital Eclipse page that I was saying had a lot of inaccuracies, particularly on the history of its first (1992-2005) incarnation. 

 

Re: VCS and Code Mystics. Their press reported that it includes Atari Vault. Atari Vault was developed by Code Mystics. Sorry... I have nothing more interesting to share. 

[OCAT]

^ Canadian Taco recipies are always interesting and welcomed xD 🌮 🍁

[Chopsus]

So, assuming the technology works, but FAtari install an OS full of paid/subscription based content and gambling, will I be able to reformat the internal SSD, install Windows and watch Netflix in my bedroom?

[6502wrangler]

2 minutes ago, Chopsus said:

So, assuming the technology works, but FAtari install an OS full of paid/subscription based content and gambling, will I be able to reformat the internal SSD, install Windows and watch Netflix in my bedroom?

No. You will need an external drive to install Windows. Crazy but that's the brakes. 

[Matt_B]

Just now, 6502wrangler said:

No. You will need an external drive to install Windows. Crazy but that's the brakes. 

Well, at least you will until someone hacks it.

 

If even the likes of Nintendo and Sony can't keep their consoles secure, it'd be something of a turn up if Atari could.

[6502wrangler]

Just now, Matt_B said:

Well, at least you will until someone hacks it.

 

If even the likes of Nintendo and Sony can't keep their consoles secure, it'd be something of a turn up if Atari could.

Atari is probably hoping someone will hack it into something actually  useful. 

[TACODON]

Well if you are warm to basic and do some HardWork I bet you could make a Knight Rider game for this thing? What say ye men?

[fultonbot]

1 hour ago, JeffVav said:

 

 

Re: VCS and Code Mystics. Their press reported that it includes Atari Vault. Atari Vault was developed by Code Mystics. Sorry... I have nothing more interesting to share. 

Was there ever any talk of getting Food Fight onto one the Atari Vault collections?  I'm still wondering why it has not shown up.  

[OCAT]

3 hours ago, fultonbot said:

Was there ever any talk of getting Food Fight onto one the Atari Vault collections?  I'm still wondering why it has not shown up.  

Perhaps the original devellopers are still putting up a fight over copyrights 😂

 

3 hours ago, 6502wrangler said:

Atari is probably hoping someone will hack it into something actually  useful. 

Doorstops are available at the Dollar store... 😁

[JeffVav]

23 minutes ago, fultonbot said:

Was there ever any talk of getting Food Fight onto one the Atari Vault collections?  I'm still wondering why it has not shown up.  

I don't really have insight into what drives the decision for which games they want to include and which they don't. 

[+Nathan Strum]

2 hours ago, JeffVav said:

I don't really have insight into what drives the decision for which games they want to include and which they don't. 

I'm pretty sure they don't either.

[toiletunes]

9 hours ago, Chopsus said:

will I be able to...

... watch Netflix in my bedroom?

Netflix option is only available to moms.